ALL KINDS OF EVERYTHING

 One moment the sun is out and warm on my face then it is snowing, an icy wind blows down from the north east.

The garden takes a beating. the red tulips are ragged and horizontal, there is snow on the grass. I expect the tadpoles and frogs are well buried at the bottom of the pond.

It calms down a bit by Wednesday after some sunshine but is raining.

There are a few bonuses - the rhubarb is out of the top of the forcing pot and we have broccoli, a bit moth-eaten but ok.

Seedlings are growing but I have put off the transferring of the sweet peas until slightly warmer climes.

We were disturbed in the kitchen by a tapping on the window and there were a pair of long-tailed tits wanting to come in.

They are such dainty birds weighing no more than 10 grams at the most and under 14 cm long - all tail. (Please excuse the dirty window).

Sort of talking birds occasionally there can be surprise - I was watching the goldfinches on the nyger seed feeder when a greenfinch landed. I have not seen one here for a few years. Their numbers were decimated by trichomonosis.

Today I got, fed up and planted out the sweet peas. fingers crossed. Each plant has a moat of grit around it to try and deter the snails and slugs. I have sown parsnips, one seed in each of a dozen toilet roll inners filled with compost sown the white snapdragon seed.

A friend wants some redcurrant bushes and I have some to spare so three are going. They take as cuttings so easily as do black currants.

The euonymus the gardener S moved in the autumn is well and sprouting leaves.

Then there are the lambs from the field. They had found a way under our new fence into the garden but were ushered out by R.

I have put and old plank along the bottom edge of the wire.

They are just like a gang of hooligans, escaping and then unable to work out how to get back to the ewes who are calling loudly.

I know - daffs daffs daffs but they have been spectacular this year.

Time to eat that rhubarb, now out of the top of the forcing pot. The young stems will be more tender and juicy - however we still have rhubarb ink the freezer from last year.

The cherries are coming out and the garden is coming alive. Cosmos seedlings potted up, potted some white honesty, sowed some parsnip seeds in modules and courgette seeds. More algae raked from the pond.

And I leave you with this photo of the wild daffodils in our churchyard.

OH! TO BE IN ENGLAND

April is here, Tuesday and 19C, we sat with the doors open, lunch outside, pheasants, squirrels, rabbits roaming through our Eden, feeders busy - blue, great and coal tits, chaffinch, bullfinch, goldfinches, blackbirds, robins and song thrushes singing, the odd hoot of a tawny owl, mallard on the pond, heron frogging, lambs in the back field, etc etc. Even the flies are sunbathing.

Then bad weather is sent from the Arctic and we have frosts and so on. Glad the tender plants are not out in the garden. Gales are smashing the tulips.

Down the bottom the pond is in two halves, right shallower and weed free, left, as shown, clarted but deeper. So out with the improvised rake, a garden rake with an extra broom handle gaffer taped to it to make it long enough.

Then we have reflections even if the wildlife has less cover from the visiting heron.

Last year, or the year before we planted a new eucalyptus and it is now seven feet tall. Of course not as tall as the mighty tree R planted twelve years ago - must be fifty or sixty feet in height now.

The first camellia is covered in flowers and the viburnum bonariensis has been splendid for a few months. The flowering currants have benefitted from a prune in the winter.

Hellebores,  wood anemones and lent lilies (wild daffs) are doing well.

The primrose banking is showing the benefits of annual division and replanting, soon we will have a yellow carpet at the edge of the trees.

We have been given four small delphinium plants and are looking forward to them flowering later in the year. And a chunk of gunnera which I have split in two. I hope they will be ok but could have done with a bit of root like when dividing and moving rhubarb.

Lawns mown, started to fill the new compost bins, spring is springing.

Ho, ho, I have fallen for an old trick on Facebook with an advert for a Stihl mini chainsaw from Real Wood. What I missed was a choice between a manual and an electric version - just ordered one. It took ages to come from the other side of the world and all it was was a bit of special wire between two small handles!

It arrived today from China in a tiny envelope.

So ho, ho, ho.

The advert was definitely deceptive but did I really expect a chainsaw for so little - well, R says, knowing me, probably. She has mentioned there word gullible a few times.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE

A mow makes. Finally got mowers back from service and have lightly scalped the grass.

Gardener came and has built two new compost bins by the far wall. In time, when the old bins are empty they will be removed and then will have to decide if that area just reverts to grass or . . . ? 

R has been dividing and replanting snowdrops. I trimmed back the miscanthus a bit more and finally managed to get the bonfire to burn - ash on the blackcurrants next to the emerging chives.

Before the mowers returned I tidied the shed, just in time. Then a seedling order from Sarah Raven arrived - sweet peas (yes, I will not give up), ammi and verbena bonariensis.

Would not want to be a frog as heron paying regular visits.

We went for coffee at friends and I took some white phlox and red alstroemeria. I did warn him the latter tends to spread.

We have had all weather - rain, wind, hail and even sunshine. Actually no snow yet - only on the fell tops.

Inside the extension the Canna lily is glorious. Outside the Madame Lefebvre tulips are the same but vulnerable to the wind. As I have said before they were one of my mother's favourite plants - what an amazing colour - a blast to the senses.

It was, I think, named after Louise-Rosalie Lefebvre (18 June 1755 – 22 September 1821), also known as Madame Dugazon, was a French operatic mezzo-soprano, actress and dancer.

         

We have several big trees in the garden, the largest is this sycamore - registered as a Notable Tree by the Woodland Trust.

Sometimes one digs up the past. I know someone who might recognise this tile.

The introduction of a nyger seed feeder has brought in a shower of glorious goldfinches but one snag of where the feeders are on the cherry tree is that the pheasants and squirrels trample the daffodils below. I leave you with one of the birds.

MARCH HAIR

Spring is here, sunshine and daffodils, primroses and first leaves. Must get to a barber when I can and it is allowed. If the government saw my hair they would be opening a barber straight away.

Best of all wild daffodils -

The veg beds are raked, the pond is skimmed for algae (growing fast as the water warms up) chippings placed where paths have become muddy but the mowers are not yet back - so I cannot mow - even if I wanted to. 

Euphorbias are flowering and the Wulfenii that was flattered by the gales has started to grow upwards again - I should have staked it.

  

We have lots of white plants beginning to flower including the white daffodils across the stream in the wood - the Clematis armandii I thought was dead, violas, comfrey and pulmonaria let alone the winter flowering honeysuckle.

And of course other colours - crocuses, camellia, tulips and flowering currant, the other pulmonaria.

 

In the house the canna lily is exploding with orange - R's favourite colour.

Of course there has been a bit of gardening going on - a bit. The cutting bed has been spruced up and I have replanted the old herb pot with thyme, violas and a gardenia.

The willow in the bottom garden may need to be pollarded now. And the birds are getting fat - well they should be on the amount of sunflower seed they are consuming. They are picky and any seed they discard falls into the waiting maw of the pheasant. Squirrels and pigeons also wait for dropped offerings along with chaffinches that seem to like ground feeding more than clinging on to a swinging feeder.

So we wait for our second jab to stave off the virus though here we have had no cases in the last week. It has been suggested that social distancing and masks may need to be used for a few years - cannot see that happening, British too stroppy in the long run. Our Scottish holiday hangs by a thread of Harris tweed, everything crossed.

So the garden is tidy (ish) and here is a lazy man's collection of things not put away outside the kitchen door.

Yeh! Yeh! I will get to it one day.